


Carraid

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, problems with the TARDIS, translation errors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:04:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10065209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Scots Gaelic has a word that could mean 'carrot', 'parsnip', or 'trouble/distress/conflict'. Language difficulties arise.





	

Part 1: Carrot

“We’ve closed off the entry points here -” Zoe pointed to the narrow passageways on the map, “here, and here. There’s only one way left.”

“And Jamie’s just taken an armed party that way, yes.” The Doctor frowned, rubbing his cheek with one finger, still uncertain about the prospect of _fighting_ this creature. After all, they had no idea of what its motives were – for all they knew, it was lost and confused, lashing out in what it believed to be self-defence. “I can’t help but feel that we’re missing something here, Zoe.”

“I don’t think so.” Zoe shrugged. “The trap’s all set. It’s not like it’s going to fly away, now, is it?”

Pursing his lips in thought, the Doctor glanced around at their surroundings. He and Zoe were occupying the centre of a circular enclosure formed by rock walls, crouched over their map of the stony labyrinth. Scattered around them were soldiers, the planet’s inhabitants, dressed in black, canvas-like material. From the back, their dark fur was mostly concealed, and they would have appeared to be human were it not for the long ears poking out of their helmets. Now, the ears of their companions were pricked, listening out for the slightest sound of danger, twitching uneasily. If the Doctor had ears like that, he was sure that they would also have been flickering about anxiously, but he had to content himself with rubbing his hands together and watching the gap in the walls through which Jamie had disappeared five minutes previously.

“How long did you say it would take for the creature to get here?” he asked Zoe yet again.

Zoe sighed. “It should be here in two minutes and forty-seven seconds, if nothing goes wrong.”

That was the catch - ‘if nothing goes wrong’. If the creature did not run into any obstacles on its way. If it did not change its mind about hunting them. If the direction of the wind did not remain the same, and happened to lead it away from the plateau they were perched on. If it took the easy option instead of fighting its way through another entrance. The Doctor took a deep breath. It could all pull together perfectly in the end, he told himself. It had to. He always struggled to convince others that his plans were perfectly safe and fail-proof, but sometimes the person who took the most convincing was himself. As it turned out, facing down an eighteen-foot-long, fire-breathing reptile was one of the occasions on which his knowledge of all the ways his plan could go wrong got the better of him.

His fretting was interrupted by a sound far more concerning than even his most panicked thoughts, making him look up in alarm and Zoe jump, scattering the pebbles she had been using to mark out their positions on the map off. “Doctor!” Jamie’s voice echoed strangely off the curves of the rock walls, making the Doctor turn this way and that, trying to pinpoint his exact position.

“Jamie?” he called back cautiously. “Are you alright?” Any reply was cut off by a great roar and the crackling, rushing sound of fire. The Doctor heard shouts of alarm, could pick out Jamie’s voice amongst the strangely high-pitched voices of the soldiers, and tried again. “Jamie! What’s happening?”

“Doctor!” Jamie’s voice was louder this time, closer, carrying over the pounding of feet. “We’ve -” he paused, just as the cool air was split by a blaze of heat. “We’ve got a carrot here!”

The absurdity of this statement broke through the tension that had settled over the enclosure, and Zoe and the Doctor exchanged confused glances. The soldiers, too, were looking around at one another in concern, muttering. Briefly, the Doctor wondered if they were considering whether their would-be saviours were mad after all, or whether the TARDIS translation matrix had failed to find a matching word in their language, and they were puzzling over what a carrot could possibly be.

“Jamie, we couldn’t quite hear you,” Zoe called. “Say that again?”

“I _said_ ,” Jamie repeated, “we’ve got a carrot!”

Again, the Doctor had to pause to consider this statement. “A carrot?”

“Aye!” Jamie’s voice was in equal parts breathless and irritated. “A big one! It’s coming straight for us!” A great crash sounded, as if something had knocked over one of the walls, and the Doctor heard Jamie bellowing “run!” saw him sprint through the entrance to the enclosure, eyes wide with both terror and exhilaration. Barely glancing at e Doctor and Zoe, he raced past them, taking the Doctor’s hand as he did so, carrying him along by pure momentum and leaving the Doctor himself barely a moment to seize Zoe’s hand and pull her with them. Looking back, the Doctor saw a great, draconic figure crouched over the entrance, one massive paw slamming onto the ground, sinuous coils draped over the walls behind it, crushing them. Bright orange, with a dark green crest running down its spine, it looked a little like a carrot, but answered none of the questions in the Doctor’s mind. Before he could look closer, the creature raised it long snout and opened its jaws to release yet another burst of fire, and the Doctor had to turn away to shield his face from the searing heat.

Stumbling to a halt in the chamber at the centre of the plateau, the Doctor turned to see the soldiers arriving behind them. The dark, hollow stone hemisphere should conceal them for a while, he thought, but the creature would find them eventually. He turned to Jamie, who was almost doubled over in breathlessness and exhaustion, breathing heavily. “What exactly happened?” he demanded.

“It came out of nowhere,” Jamie explained. “Just shot up of the ground in front of us. The soldiers ran for it, and I cannae say I blame them.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and straightened up. “You didnae tell us we were facing a huge, fire-breathing, _burrowing_ beastie!”

“Well,” the Doctor blustered. “Well, I didn’t know. There was no evidence, nothing in the creature’s anatomy to suggest… But what was all that about a carrot?”

“Eh?” Jamie turned back to him in confusion.

“You said that there was a carrot heading straight for you,” Zoe supplied. “We weren’t sure what you meant.”

“A carrot?” Jamie said incredulously. “No, no, ye must’ve misheard me. I said the beastie was coming for us.”

The Doctor and Zoe exchanged doubtful looks. “What was it that you first said to us?” Zoe asked. “You called for the Doctor, and then -”

“Och, I dinnae remember,” Jamie interrupted. “We were being chased, it was all a bit confused. Does it matter?”

A look of dawning comprehension spread across the Doctor’s face at this, and Zoe frowned at him as he started to laugh. “Jamie, is it possible you weren’t speaking English?”

“Aye, maybe,” Jamie replied. “What does it matter?” He cast an anxious look towards the entrance to the cavern. “We should go, it’s a wonder it’s no’ found us already.”

“Then I think that’s the answer,” the Doctor continued. “Jamie meant to tell us that there was something coming -”

“Aye, that we’d run into trouble -”

“But what the TARDIS translated it to was ‘carrot’. A simple misunderstanding.”

“I thought you said the TARDIS translation matrix was perfect?” Zoe asked.

“Well...” The Doctor coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment. “Perhaps she decided to have some fun with us.”

“Och, you’ve solved your wee mystery,” Jamie put in. “Now let’s go, it’ll be here any second!”

“Not just yet, Jamie.” The Doctor reached over to grab his hand, pulling him back where he would have darted out of the cavern. “I think it’s time to see if we can speak with this creature.”

Part 2: Trouble

What passed for morning aboard the TARDIS was generally peaceful, the corridors still dim, the ship’s constant hum quieter somehow, more gentle. It was unusual, therefore, for the Doctor to be awoken by a loud noise. He blinked sleepily, hands moving up to cover his ears at a crash, the whine and grinding of machinery, and a series of frustrated shouts. Rolling over, limbs flailing somewhat helplessly, he attempted to bury his face in Jamie’s shoulder to block out the noise, and let out a small huff of protest as he collided with a pillow.

It was only then that he recognised the shouting as being Jamie’s and one hand moved from his ear to cover his eyes in dismay. The noise seemed to be coming from the kitchen – Jamie’s seemingly insatiable appetite had brought him nothing but trouble yet again, the Doctor reflected with an odd mixture of frustration and fondness.

He was on the verge of dragging himself out of bed when Jamie gave a loud, desperate whine of “Doctor!” This was succeeded by an astonishing array of creaks, bangs, a loud thump, and finally the acrid smell of smoke drifting through the corridors. “Och, I didnae ask for a _parsnip_ , ye -” There was a moment’s silence, then Jamie called out again, quieter this time. “Doctor… The food machine… there’s….” The Doctor only caught the end of his final sentence, as he called out “… distress…” in a small, confused voice.

A moment later, the Doctor stumbled into the kitchen, only to stop short at the strange sight which greeted him. Jamie was sat on the floor, blinking in unbridled confusion, the beginnings of a black eye already visible on his face. One hand grasped a carrot of truly exceptional size.

It took the Doctor a moment to re-arrange his thoughts into some semblance of order, and even then, all he could manage was “That’s not a parsnip.”

“Eh?” Jamie reached up to rub at his forehead.

“You said -” The Doctor broke down into near-hysterical giggles. “You said there was a parsnip. And then that you were in distress. Or perhaps that the food machine was.”

“Oh.” Still laughing, the Doctor moved over to sit down next to Jamie. “I was talkin’ about the carrot.”

“Yes, I’m sure you were.” Reaching over to pluck the carrot out of Jamie’s hands, the Doctor turned it over with the air of someone examining an artwork. “Well, it’s certainly a carrot of great quality and size, Jamie. I’d say you’ve done rather well.” Grinning with impish delight at Jamie’s frustrated expression, he reached up and gently tapped his companion on the nose with the carrot. “What were you doing out of bed so early, anyway?”

Even with his face buried in the Doctor’s shoulder in mortification, Jamie could not hide the blush that spread across his cheeks. “I was trying tae make breakfast,” he muttered after a long silence.

“Even you can’t have been that hungry,” the Doctor reprimanded him gently. “Couldn’t you wait?”

“I was trying to make _us_ breakfast,” Jamie said sullenly. “I was going tae bring it to you. It was meant to be a _surprise_.”

“And instead the food machine decided to surprise you – with a carrot,” the Doctor finished. Jamie shifted to rest his head more comfortably on the Doctor’s shoulder, and in return he wrapped one arm around Jamie’s waist. “Well, the old girl does like to play up at the worst possible moments, doesn’t she?”

Sitting there, shrouded in the morning peace with Jamie’s comforting warmth beside him, the Doctor thought that such a moment of contentment was better than breakfast in bed – even if it was not a surprise. It might even make up for waking up without Jamie. Even as he smiled, however, Jamie gave a dejected sigh, still wrapped up in his disappointment.

“As it happens, there is a particular breakfast recipe that I’m rather fond of.” The Doctor stood up, brushing himself off and holding out his hand to Jamie, who took it. “And it has carrots as its main ingredient. Come on, I’ll show you how to make it.”


End file.
